


All Good Gifts

by salliethesalad



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Godspell, M/M, cassette tapes, driving through Nebraska lengthwise is a special subset of Hell, sappy late night car thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4627374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salliethesalad/pseuds/salliethesalad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas finds a cassette of Godspell at a thrift store, and Dean's driver-pick-the-music rule is seriously put to the test.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Good Gifts

 

They’re in a thrift store in Nebraska, and Dean is starting to seriously regret letting Cas convince him to pull off the main road.

His brother’s broad shoulders keep hitting him as they struggle to share the cramped cubicle lined with used books. Theoretically, Dean’s only there on the pretext of scanning for dusty volumes of lore that belonged to some old lady before she kicked it, but the excuse is flimsy at best considering the Men of Letters’ library, and Dean knows it. Still, Sam becomes courteously engrossed in  _Sense & Sensibility_ when Dean edges toward the S-V section. The yellowed copy of  _God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_  he finds is small enough to slip into the deep pocket of his leather jacket, and he sidles up to Sam, eye on a paperback  _Fahrenheit 451_  that sits dangerously close to the Atwood-Austen region.

“Where the hell is Cas?” he grumbles. Sam reshelves a beat-up  _Hitchhiker’s Guide_  and stands up, scanning the store’s recesses for a disheveled trench coat.

“I don’t see-“

“Nevermind, dammit. I’ll go find him myself.” He jerkily grabs the Bradbury novel and stalks away. It isn’t Cas wandering off that has him on edge so much as his old stupid hang-ups about liking nerdy crap. If Dean’s being honest with himself, he knows that Sam’s not the only smart Winchester, and that he doesn’t just like Star Wars because Han Solo’s a badass. If he’s being  _really_ honest with himself, he knows he doesn’t just like Han Solo because he’s a badass either, but that’s where he starts to get defensive again, which feels stupid stupid  _stupid_. For fuck’s sake, they LARPed with Charlie. There isn’t any coming back from that in Dean’s mind, not when he enjoyed it as much as he did, and especially not when he realized he didn’t care how obvious it was to his giant moose brother and the entire kingdom of Moondor.  _So why is it such a big fucking deal to buy some books, Winchester?_

Mulling this over and feeling like a fucking idiot, he rounds the corner and spots Cas on the floor, surrounded by an ocean of scattered cassette tapes. He mutters a muffled  _shit_  and starts toward the music section, his boots clomping on the carpet. Cas whips around, eyes dancing with excitement, and upsets a mound of tapes.

“Dean! I’ve been thinking, and since acquiring my own car, I thought it would be appropriate to get some of my own music.” He looks pleased, like this novel idea will win him serious points.

Suddenly, Dean wants to take extra care not to crush him. The former angel’s looks range from confused to exasperated to deadpan, but the earnestness of this particular expression makes something flare up in Dean’s stomach.  _Protectiveness_ , his brain supplies.  _Shut up_ , Dean supplies right back.

“That’s great, Cas.” He eyes the disorganized tapes. “Whatcha got?”

Cas is uncharacteristically chatty as he carefully selects cassettes from a small pile kept separate from the others. “As I often hear you saying the driver picks the music, I felt remiss that I didn’t have any of my own. The hip-hop left in the car is interesting, but aside from that, I’m most familiar with your music. I want to diversify my tastes.”

“What?! Come on, man- Zeppelin, AC/DC, Boston- they  _rock_!” He waggles his eyebrows. “What more could you want?!”

Cas looks amusedly at him and deadpans, “Taylor Swift.”

Dean’s ears turn pink. “I- You know what- she’s-  _ShakeItOffisacatchysong, dammit!_ ” Cas’s eyes crinkle, and warmly, he replies, “And you would never have known that had you not broadened your horizons.”  _Dude’s got a point_ , Dean thinks.

“Which is why I’ve gathered an assortment of genres to explore,” Cas continues. “A contrast to the electric rock of which you are fond”- he holds up Simon and Garfunkel’s  _Sounds of Silence_ \- “some pop music, which has been very successful in the global mainstream”-  _Gold: Abba’s Greatest Hits_  makes an appearance and Dean cringes- “and protest music” – a couple laughs on the front of  _The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan_.

“Well, Cas, that looks like-”

“Oh! And this!” He hands Dean a tape with a colorful cover. “I am especially looking forward to this one. The songs are all based on the text of Matthew, sometimes directly quoting the-”

“ _Godspell_ , Cas?!  _GODSPELL?!_ ”

“It seems like somethi-“

“Dude, I am not letting you play showtunes in your  _Lincoln Continental_.”

“Dean, I don’t see what the make and model of my car has to do with my choice of music.”

Exasperated, Dean puts the tape on the pile of Cas’s other selections with a  _clack_. “Fine, Cas. Listen to whatever you want.” He looks expectantly at the former angel, who defiantly drops all the tapes and picks up only  _Godspell_. He stands, clutching the pink and orange plastic, and surveys the chaos on the floor.

“Dean, shouldn’t we at least clea-”

“Cas, if you don’t move your ass, there’s gonna be a little old Nebraskan lady on it asking why you fucked up her music section.”

Cas throws a bitchy expression Dean’s way and follows him back to the books, where Sam is still absorbed in a novel. Dean gives a succinct whistle that makes him jump. “Alright Sammy, let’s move out. Those old dolls are givin’ me the creeps, and Cas thinks he’s  _Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist_.” Sam looks bewildered, as does Cas, who can clearly tell he’s been insulted. Dean exhales. “Wouldja just come on, Sam. Let’s  _go_.”

As they make their way to the register, Cas spots an original model Walkman and headphones in Electronics, and adds it to their purchase. “So I won’t bother you with my  _showtunes_ ,” he informs Dean snarkily. 

******

They’re driving down I-80, and Dean is seriously regretting letting Cas convince him to buy the Walkman.

It seemed like a good enough idea: let Cas listen to his garbage while Dean and Sam listen to  _awesome_  rock music in the front seat. But the headphones don’t work very well, and Cas pitched a fit about not being able to hear his new music (“It’s cultural edu _cation_ , Dean”), not even with the volume turned up  _all the_ way, and insisted that Baby’s speakers stay silent, which was too exasperating to argue with. 

But now, he’s sitting in a silent front seat, driving lengthwise across Nebraska, with nothing but soybeans to distract him from the sounds of Cas’s Walkman. The tape must not be very long, because the former angel has flipped it almost 6 times. And with the dulcet tones of  _Godspell_  travelling straight from Cas’s headphones to Dean’s reluctant ears, he’s starting to recognize the songs. Not words or anything, but the tunes are catchy. The tunes are really catchy. The tunes are so catchy that Dean finds himself humming them multiple times before catching himself and checking to see if Sam can hear him. 

The later it gets, the more his brother starts to drift off. I-80 takes them through field after boring field, and before long, Sam’s snoring. Normally they’d stop for the night, but with their thrift shop detour, Dean doesn’t want to eat up more time at a shitty motel and spend more time in this state than necessary. He doesn’t want to think about the faith healer they stopped before he could heal a woman who deserved it (but not before he gave Dean his first get-out-of-death-free card). He doesn’t want to think about the exit they used to take off highway 2 for The Roadhouse, and he doesn’t want to screw around with the Children of the Corn. He just wants to get the  _fuck_  out of Nebraska. 

The more his brain won’t shut up, the more Dean starts to realize that he’s not gonna make it all night without music.  He yawns, and looks in the rearview to see Cas starting to go- eyelids droopy, head at a weird angle; the works.

“Cas!” he stage whispers. Nothing. He tries again, but  _now_  the headphones decide cancel out the surrounding noise. He resorts to tossing a penny into the backseat. Cas starts, and gives Dean a grumpy look, taking off his headphones. “Look, dude, I’m sorry,” he placates, “but if I’m gonna stay awake and get our asses to Colorado Springs by tomorrow, I’m gonna have to have music playing.”

Cas looks at him groggily, like he’s a puzzle to solve.

“And I was wondering if- I thought we could-” he grits out, trying to figure out a way to ask for what he wants without it sounding like he’s backpedaling on his previous comments about the musical. “Since you’re so damn set on listening to that thing over and over again, and I need some music to wake me up, just give it to me and I’ll put it in the freakin’ tape deck” he finally says, gruffly. Cas smiles, and it fades to a smirk as he ejects the tape and hands it over the seat, saying, “I thought you’d never ask, Dean.” Dean pulls a face at him in the mirror. 

There’s a hushed moment, and then “ _[Preee-eeee-eee-pare ye the way of the Loooooord](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFmAjtXv7WY&feature=youtu.be&t=16)”_  tumbles out of the speakers. The pace picks up, and by the end of the song, Dean’s tapping his hands rhythmically on the steering wheel. He checks the rearview to see if Cas noticed, and finds him asleep.

Which faces him with a dilemma.

On the one hand, he could just as easily switch to one of his own tapes. But on the other, this “[God save the people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8CBBbkH51k&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YJnQp_YuTFGc-EEfdBpZFq&index=4)” crap is kinda catchy.

He’s still deciding when [the next song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMRqh013y04&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YJnQp_YuTFGc-EEfdBpZFq&index=5) comes on, and he almost rewinds it to make sure he heard it right. Because those lyrics sounded like[ what Greg says ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DlNF_ukr0I)at dinner in  _Meet the Parents,_ which, as a TBS staple, he’s seen enough times to make a definitive call on the lyrics. But apparently those are the only lines in whole song, because they repeat enough times for him to confirm that it is, in fact, a quote from a Robert DeNiro movie. Or maybe it’s the other way around.  _Doesn’t matter._

The rest of Side A is pretty hit or miss. Just as he’s getting into [the next one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3QniQAA-GM&index=6&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YJnQp_YuTFGc-EEfdBpZFq), it’s over. Damn minute-long songs, especially since it’s right before he has to sit through an entire three minutes about “[blessing the Lord](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFJIxQuLKIU&index=7&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YJnQp_YuTFGc-EEfdBpZFq)” and how “the Lord to thee is kind”, which, as far as Dean’s concerned, is pretty much bullshit. But [a ragtime piano](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yRW5tlpTkw&index=8&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YJnQp_YuTFGc-EEfdBpZFq), in what is probably his favorite so far ( _if_  he’s admitting to liking this, and depending on whether it’s his brother or Cas who wakes up first, that’s various degrees of unlikely), gets his attention. It reminds him of being up late watching Sammy in their motel room, and coming across old movies on TV, the kind in black and white with big dance numbers.  

The song ends, drawing him out of the memory. 

Violins come in slowly as what must be [the last song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHMQDwUFz5w) on the side starts. It’s a simple melody, different. He takes in the comforting solitude of night driving, watching the flat expanse of highway in front of his headlights, the purple-black sky with its blanket of twinkling stars. There’s no moon out, so they shine clearer and brighter than Dean’s used to. He’s seen gods and demons, angels and prophets, and still, the only thing that really makes him think that the universe might not be a crapshoot is looking at the stars. He thinks about nights on the Impala’s hood with Sammy, watching meteor showers the kid researched so he’d know exactly when they’d be. About his time at Sonny’s, lazily exchanging kisses with Robin while Orion and Cassiopeia watched. About the angels falling.

 _Godspell_  drifts back into his consciousness, the lilting melody continuing with “ _all good gifts around us/ are sent from heaven above”_. He glances at the rearview, catching Cas’s sleeping form. He looks… angelic. Peaceful.

 _Beautiful_.

In the safety of darkness, under the stars on a lone stretch of highway, he can let himself think that. He looks at Cas again, and his gaze softens, a warmth spreading in his chest. “ _All good gifts around us/ are sent from heaven above…”_ The former angel looks at once otherworldly and desperately human.  _And_ , he thinks,  _it’s because of me_. This celestial creature is where he is because of Dean’s choices, and because he stubbornly followed Dean to the ends of the earth. Because Cas would follow Dean anywhere.

The song starts to swell as it dawns on Dean that for the first time, when he thinks about Cas’s deteriorating condition, and everything he’s lost - everything  _they’ve_  lost... he doesn’t feel like it’s his  _fault._  It doesn’t feel like another fuck-up on either of their parts, doesn’t feel like part of the Winchester Chain of Mistakes. 

It feels... different. _He_ feels different. As he looks at Cas, he knows what it means, why Cas is still in the back seat after all they’ve been though, and why Dean's willing to break the cardinal rule of music in his baby for  _showtunes_. Maybe he’ll freak out and push it down in the morning, taking it out on his brother, and lashing out at Cas for no reason. But right now, he feels something too intense to put a name to, at least tonight. 

So he watches Cas’s chest rise and fall in the rearview as side A of the cassette comes to an end, the last lines of the song floating into the car’s interior.

_“So thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord, for all his love.”_

The clicking of the tape’s end breaks the moment. He turns off the stereo, and glances at the backseat once more before training his eyes on the road. 

**Author's Note:**

> breaking news: emotional theatre kid writes about non-theatre OTP; feelings rampant
> 
> also lest we forget, dean fucking quotes rent and references fiddler on the roof so this is definitely an un-pursued avenue of his character that we should all get on ASAP
> 
> i feel like i should link the songs referenced bc like all theatre things i have strong opinions about which version of them is best, so...: those are in there now [and no they're not all OBC because even thought technically that's what would have to be on the tape, I'm weirdly attached to the 2001 tour cast recording??? except for the Turn Back O Man because the 2001 recording of that is funked out in a bad way]


End file.
